The Gambler's Fortune (Einarinn 3) (19 page)

’Gren smiled sunnily. “Let’s just say that if they’re honest men, I’m the Elected of Col.”

“So the night’s not a total wash-out,” I joked feebly.

“You need a hot tisane,” said ’Gren critically.

“Of course,” I agreed, “and white bread to go with my roast dinner, and tell the maid not to call me too early in the morning.” I’ve always found it impossible to stay cross at him for long.

I allowed him to lead me back to the fire, where a couple of women were scolding the merchants into broaching their remaining supplies. No one had salvaged any juniper liquor so I had to settle for a cup of newly boiled water bitter with the tang of steeped herbs. It could have done with a spoonful of honey but this was hardly the time to complain about trivialities.

“How are you feeling?” I sat next to Zenela, who was propped up against what remained of Sorgrad’s valises.

“My chest hurts,” she said hoarsely. A massive bruise was purphng across her forehead and a deep graze under her chin would leave her marked for a long while. Her hands were scratched, her nails broken and her long hair was a tangled rat’s nest. Her chin quavered and tears blurred her eyes. In no mood to sit doing nothing but get miserable myself, I pulled a comb from my pocket and began teasing the snarls out of her hair. Frue sang a Forest song, the chorus a meaningless litany, pleasant enough to listen to and soothing. Zenela’s breathing came a little easier as we sat, people all around us seeing what could be salvaged, anxiously checking over their horses and mules, a chill in their spirits as well as their bones.

Frue struck up a new song and one name among the otherwise unknown Forest words caught my ear. “Is that a song about Viyenne?” A ridiculous notion teased me.

He nodded. “Do you know it?”

“I think I heard it, once, long ago.” More importantly, I’d recognized the name in one of the untranslated Forest songs in the book. I itched to get it out but dared not risk the precious thing in the midst of all this muck and damp. “Remind me of the tale.” Perhaps I’d remembered wrong.

Frue smiled. “Viyenne had left her lover, Seris, to travel for a season or so and learn new songs. She traveled for a while with Regere, the weaver of trees. He became besotted with her, was outraged when she decided to return to Seris. Regere had the willows knot themselves into a cage to keep Viyenne with him, but her tears dropped into the river and it rose up to sweep away the barriers and set her free.” Frue looked at the desolation all around us. “It seemed a timely tale.”

So I had remembered right. Uncertainty nagged at me, no longer so ridiculous. Looking over to the riverbank, I saw Usara still prowling, frowning and gesturing with his hands as he argued with himself. Sorgrad and ’Gren had joined a gang trying to get into the demolished hut. I got up and made a tisane, trying to ease the stiffness in my back and legs as I walked over to the wizard. “Drink this,” I ordered.

“I need to—” he protested.

“You need to take some time to gather your strength, or you’ll be no use to anyone,” I told him firmly.

He sighed and sipped at the steaming cup. “Thank you.”

“So are you satisfied this was just happenstance?” I was cold, damp and tired, and I wanted reassurance.

“Frankly, no.” Usara scowled at the waters rushing past in the pale light of a wanning sky. “Oh, perhaps, I really can’t say. There’s certainly something awry with the elements hereabouts but that could just be coincidence, a result of some peculiarity of the weather, an effect of the sudden warm spell.” He yawned. “With access to a good library, an apprentice or two to set researching and a week’s sleep I should be able to tell you one way or the other.” He managed a thin smile. “Theory and practice are proving rather more widely separated than I had imagined. I think I owe Sorgrad an apology.”

I wonder what odds I’d have got against a wizard ever admitting he’d been wrong?

“Is there any way the flood could have been summoned with Artifice?” I asked abruptly. I’d been trying to find a less obvious way of phrasing the question, but I was tired and Frue’s reminder of Viyenne’s story had me more nervous than I cared to be. In a city you can tell where the threats are coming from, out of doors or down clear paths, and when you’re up against other people you know you’re matching your speed and wit against theirs. Out here in the wilds, danger could come from any direction and with any manner of magic; it could be invisible, inaudible and biting your ear before you knew it.

Usara was looking perplexed. “I’ve no idea. What makes you say that?”

“One of the old songs, it talks about a flood coming out of nowhere. That might have been aetheric magic.” I realized it did sound unlikely, even as I said it.

Usara did me the courtesy of taking me seriously. “I could ask Planir to inquire of Guinalle, next time I bespeak him, but I think you’re just seeing Eldritch-men in the shadows.”

Perhaps, and perhaps the old tales about little blue-gray men using the darkness of chimney corners and attic rooms to travel instantly from place to place held their own hints of ancient aetheric magic. I rubbed a hand over my face and shivered in the predawn chill. This whole quest had seemed so straightforward when I’d come up with the notion over a flagon of wine by the fireside of a comfortable Tormalin tavern with Ryshad.

A shout went up from the ruins of the bridgekeeper’s hut and we looked over to see men springing aside as the remains of the chimneybreast fell with a sullen thud. Sorgrad and ’Gren came away, shaking their heads and I went to make them each a tisane.

“So that’s six dead for Poldrion’s ferry in all,” said Sorgrad bitterly.

“Maybe the Ferryman’ll give the bridgekeeper a free journey, on account of them being in the same trade,” ’Gren quipped, but his heart wasn’t in it.

I handed them each a drink, having nothing useful to say.

“Perhaps if I’d listened to you, we could have done more, got them away from the bank,” Usara said with honest regret.

Sorgrad looked sharply at him, face drawn with exhaustion. “There’s no saying they’d have believed us. Anyway, it’s a rune that could have rolled either way. Flash floods are like that, unexpected, catching everyone out.”

Deliberate noise at the edge of the trees brought heads up all around the campground. A handful of men stepped forward, dressed in leather and fur, two with short bows ready to hand, one with an array of throwing knives in a cross-belt. They were muscular, lean of face, all shorter than me, but just as redheaded. I wondered how long they’d been watching us.

The Wedge and Hammer Tavern, Grynth,

12th of Aft-Spring

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Keisyl’s voice was affectionate but Teiriol colored all the same as he looked up muzzily from his tankard. Keisyl stood by the table, where the younger man slouched over sticky spilled mead and an untouched bowl of pottage.

“No, I don’t think so.” Teiriol spoke with precise enunciation, blinking as he concentrated on emptying the last of the flagon into his cup. He rubbed an unsteady hand over his sweaty face, hair sticking up in unruly yellow spikes. “Mother will be fit to chew an iron bar and spit out tacks when we get home, so I’m going to make the most of this trip. Another, here!” He waved the empty jug at the potman, who looked at Keisyl, brows raised in unspoken question.

“Not until you’ve had something to eat.” Keisyl caught the eye of a serving maid. “Bread and meat here, if you please.” He handed her the congealed bowl.

Teiriol looked unpleasantly belligerent for a moment but the defiance in his eyes sank beneath a sudden rush of sentiment. “You know what’s best, don’t you, Keis? You look out for us all. I should listen to you, shouldn’t I? Not like Jeirran, drown him—”

“What about Jeirran?” Keisyl sat down and unobtrusively moved Teiriol’s drink to one side.

“Where is Jeirran?” Teiriol’s head lolled a little as he peered around the common room of the inn. “Where’s Eirys? We must look after her, Mother said—”

“Jeirran’s taken her to a dance in the market hall,” said Keisyl.

“ ’S’about flaming time he started being good to her,” Teiriol scowled. “Dunno what Mother’s going to say. Eirys got no prize insisting on that one, for all his fancy promises.” He looked perplexed at the coarse brown bread and succulent mutton that appeared in front of him.

“Eat up, Teiro,” said Keisyl, tone casual but eyes intent. “Jeirran never did tell me exactly what happened when you sold those skins.” He ate neatly with knife and fingers. “You went off to find a cockfight or something? Don’t worry, I shan’t tell Mother.”

Teiriol’s curse was stifled by his mouthful and he choked. “Do you know what he was paid?” he demanded when he could speak again, red-faced and not just from coughing. “No more than twice what we’d have got from Degran. After all his promises!”

“Didn’t he bargain hard enough?” Grim satisfaction lurked beneath Keisyl’s brows.

Faint bemusement drifted over Teiriol’s face. “Didn’t get a chance to bargain. That Huckus, he says that’s the price and we’re to take it or he’ll have that whore laying information with the Watch it was us kicking the shit out of their mates.” He sounded puzzled and aggrieved.

“Jeirran got you into a fight with some lowlanders?” Keisyl’s knuckles shone white for an instant as he gripped the hilt of his knife.

“He said it was part of doing business with that Huckus.” Teiriol wouldn’t meet his brother’s eye and shuffled a sturdy boot in the herb-strewn rushes on the floor. “It was a fix, all right,” he continued indignantly. “That whore, she was working for that Huckus, I’ll wager any money. Must have been looking out for those Watchmen, unlaced to her waist and legs as bare as a skinned rabbit—”

Keisyl shook his head. “Forget the whore, she doesn’t matter. Keep your voice down, we don’t want everyone knowing our business. You’re telling me Jeirran got gulled?”

Teiriol looked around vaguely for his drink. “That Huckus, he turns up with a bag of coin and five bully boys wide as a barn door with studded boots and clubs to match. Jeirran doesn’t even count the coin before he’s arguing but these two, they’re already taking the hides off on a handcart. Jeirran starts making a noise and Huckus threatens to call the Watch then and there.” His tongue stumbled under the double burden of outrage and alcohol. “All this way for no more than we’d have got if we’d sold the hides at Bytarne, like you’d said. That’s no return for Mother spending both halves of winter curing and caring for them. What’s Eirys thinking of—”

“Enough,” Keisyl said firmly. The door opened to admit a cheerful group of revelers followed by faint chimes from the timepiece in the tower of the market hall. The men were proud in new hats, feathers still crisp and colorful. Their ladies had furbished up their workaday woolen gowns of blue and madder with new silk ribbons, azure and rose trimming bodices and sleeves to give a festive air. One dark-haired girl was carefully teasing out the long fringe on a fine shawl of soft goat hair, embroidered with mountain flowers.

“Didn’t you buy one of those for Theilyn?” Teiriol peered over with difficulty.

Keisyl looked at him with a measuring eye. “More mead, a full flagon,” he called to the potman, who shrugged and turned to the barrel resting on the counter behind him. Keisyl took a scant half-cupful for himself, but filled Teiriol’s tankard to the brim. Grinning broadly, Teiriol nearly emptied it before he took a breath. He frowned, an ominous gray pallor supplanting his previous pinkness.

“I don’t feel so well.” He swallowed uneasily. Taking another sip, he put the tankard down hastily. “I think I could do with some air.” A fresh outbreak of sweat beaded his forehead.

“Come on.” Keisyl got his arm under his brother’s and they headed for the door, the potman watching them anxiously. Halfway there, Teiriol’s legs gave way and he folded his arms over his stomach, jaw working in distress.

“Move!” Keisyl got an arm around Teiriol’s waist and half dragged, half carried him out. He let Teiriol fall to all fours in the narrow, uncobbled street. Teiriol vomited convulsively, spewing up meat, mead and bread in a revolting mess. Keisyl’s face twisted in distaste, but when the wracking nausea abated he raised Teiriol up to walk him slowly to the town well with gentle encouragement. “Just sit there a moment, my lad.”

Teiriol’s knees obediently buckled to drop him on the cold stone steps. Keisyl briskly wound up the pail and dashed the chilly water over Teiriol’s head, repeating the process over Teiriol’s incoherent protests before using his kerchief to wipe the droplets from his brother’s shivering face.

“I’m soaked,” protested Teiriol, teeth chattering, ashen in the uncaring light of the moons high above.

“Drink, just a little.”

Teiriol cupped some water in his shaking hands, looking mournful now, chin wavering.

“You want to drink till you puke, that’s your right and I won’t tell Mother,” Keisyl said, “but you’re not sharing a bed with me smelling like something the dog sicked up.”

Teiriol simply sat there, wet and woebegone.

“You need some sleep, my lad,” said Keisyl affectionately.

“Better in the morning,” mumbled Teiriol, still pale but looking less pinched around the mouth.

Keisyl didn’t bother dashing that forlorn hope. He helped Teiriol along the street to the low-roofed hostel where they were staying.

The grim-faced doorkeeper opened to his knock carrying a smoky tallow candle. “Drunk is he? I’ll not have him puking in my bed—he can sleep it off with the dogs.”

Keisyl had his hands full supporting Teiriol who was fading fast. “We’ve hired the room and we’ll be sleeping in it,” he snapped.

“And what about them as comes next? There’s more than you heading back to the hills after festival!” the doorkeeper complained.

Keisyl ignored him, propping Teiriol against the wall as he unlatched the door to their narrow room. “Come on.”

Teiriol lurched forward and collapsed onto the rough pallet, groaning as Keisyl yanked off his boots. Cursing under his breath Keisyl stripped off Teiriol’s wet cloak and the shirt beneath it. “Little fool.” Loosening his collar and unlacing his breeches, Keisyl rolled his now inert brother onto his chest, wedging a rolled-up blanket beside him and covering him with another. “Right, now for you, Jeirran.” The menace in his face silenced the old woman sulking with her sewing by the door.